


Blurred

by bananasandroses (achuislemochroi)



Series: Whofic [70]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Heavy Angst, Introspection, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Self-Recrimination, Tenth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 22:22:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9144856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achuislemochroi/pseuds/bananasandroses
Summary: You knew this would happen, someday; you’d prepared yourself.  So why does it hurt so much?





	1. Blurred

You look down.

Tears blur your vision; it seems to you that Rose’s face looks peaceful, with no hint of the horror you’d both been through over the past few days.

But now you’ll never again see those eyes of hers glittering with unspoken emotions as they look at you; you’ll never again feel the faint shiver running up your back when she slips her fingers through yours.

There’s so much you’ll never be able to do again, not with Rose; and although you knew it would happen one day, somehow you never expected it to hurt quite this much.


	2. Love Would Last For Ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You have to tell Jackie; this makes things ten times worse.

_I thought love would last forever; I was wrong._  
\- W. H. Auden, _Funeral Blues_

When you are ready to leave her, which takes some considerable time, you bring her back to her mother.  Partly because – you think – Rose would want you to, but it’s more because you want somebody to blame you for Rose’s death in the same way you blame yourself.  Jackie is the obvious candidate.  The _only_ candidate, now Mickey is gone.

You step out of the TARDIS alone, forcing yourself to leave Rose behind.  After the Reinette incident, you had sworn to her you wouldn’t leave her behind, not ever, and here you are doing precisely that.  The circumstances might require it but that does nothing to appease the guilt you feel.

‘Where’s Rose?’

After greeting you, it’s the first thing Jackie asks; she is naturally curious about her daughter’s whereabouts.  It’s unusual, after all, for you to be at her door alone.

You don’t say anything; you just look at her, dumb and desperate, and her eyes widen.

‘Rose!  Where’s Rose?   _Where is she_?’

You don’t have to say anything, in the end, which in some ways is probably a good thing.  It’s more than likely written all over your face, in any event.  This new new face of yours has never been able to hide for long what the mind behind it is thinking, especially not when that thinking involves Rose; and, although you’ve had cause to curse that, this time it’s a blessing.

You close your eyes and wait to feel the sharp pain of Jackie’s hand hitting your skin; if she could slap you for disappearing Rose for a year, then surely failing to prevent her daughter’s death is asking for more of the same.  You can feel the tears flooding your eyes behind their lids and you try to will them away, unwilling to let yourself have the luxury of grieving.  Jackie can grieve for Rose; _you_ cannot.  You did not deserve Rose, you didn’t protect her when she needed you the most, and so you don’t believe you deserve the privilege of grieving her.

The expected slap, however, doesn’t come.

‘Doctor?’

Jackie’s voice is gentle, and invites you to look at her, but you dare not because the tears refuse to do your bidding and you don’t want to open your eyes because you are just about managing to hold the tears back from spilling down your face.  Then Jackie’s hand tentatively touches your cheek and a surge of emotion rushes through you; Rose had done that shortly before she died, while she still recognised you, and although you knows it isn’t Rose you are talking to it is impossible for you not to say her name. &nbspYou fill it with every possible drop of your love for her.

‘ _Rose_.’

The hand falters, disappears, and leaves you with an aching, desperate need to feel Rose’s hand against your skin again that you know you cannot fulfil.  Not unless you do something, unbelievably stupid, that goes against everything you have ever believed in.  Something that has to remain nothing more than a temptation to you, even if that temptation is, and has been, powerful and strong.  You have to be very careful about messing with your own, with Rose’s, past; if you gets tangled in your own timeline, there’s none but the Reapers to tidy up behind you.  However much you long to change what has happened, these very real threats act as a check on your behaviour.

You open your eyes and look across at Jackie and you see how she, too, is grieving.  More guilt to add to the suffocating pile.  You’re the cause of her grief, and yet she is not angry with you; how can that be?  The viciousness of your self-recrimination takes no heed of the fact Rose was with you of her own free will, that you couldn’t have stopped her death ... that the reason you are taking all of this so very badly is because of the nature of your relationship with her.  You’d known from the beginning that taking such a step would be courting disaster, but you’d loved her so much you’d thought it worth the risk.  And now ... now you’ve lost her ... you’re struggling to find any evidence you made the right decision.

Your eyes fill up again despite all your efforts and the tears spill over and down your cheeks, and suddenly there is a sound in the room of somebody in a huge amount of pain.  They’re ugly sobs, harsh and gasping, and it’s not until Jackie takes you in her arms to hug you tightly that you realise they are coming from you.

  



	3. Nothing Loved Is Ever Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharing the burden makes it much more bearable.

_And think of her as living_  
 _In the hearts of those she touched ..._  
 _For nothing loved is ever lost_  
 _And she was loved so much._  
– amended from an original by E. Brenneman

The last thing you consciously remember for a while, before a blessed numbness begins to surround you, is of how you and Jackie held each other and wept over the loss of a daughter and lover.  You’d taken Jackie to see Rose afterwards, letting her trespass in a place that had become almost holy ground for you; the place where light and hope now lay, for you, as dead as the irrepressible woman who had brought them to you and changed your life so much.

The next few days pass in something of a blur.

It still hurts like hell, and you’re not stupid enough to think _that_ is going to change any time soon, but the fierceness of the grief is blunted a tiny amount by the fact you aren’t the only one with the crushing burden of the news about Rose.  Somebody else now knows, too; you aren’t alone.

The first task you complete, once you’re in a fit state to do so (which takes several hours, longer than you expect), is bringing her back to her mother’s house.  You carry her from the TARDIS yourself, cradling her gently in your arms as if she were still the vibrant living human you love so much.  Her head rests against your chest, her hair streaming over your arm; you whisper to her all the while, pretending to yourself for a second or two that she’s merely dozing and can hear you.  You tell her over and over again that you love her, that you’ll never stop. Jackie tries to take her from you when you cross the threshold but you gently tell her no, you don’t need any help; she nods and says no more. You take her into the bedroom she’s had since she was a tiny baby, and lay her down on the bed, arranging her limbs so that, aside from the fact she is so very cold, she simply looks asleep.  You drop a kiss into her hair, whisper to her again and force yourself to leave the room.  You’ve kept a vigil beside her for long enough; there’ll be plenty of time later to do it again if you feel the need.

You can feel the stir-craziness building up within you; your nature is to cut and run when things like this happen and the temptation to do that now is almost overwhelming.  But something stops you, this time, and you decide to see this through.   _It’s your fault you’re in this situation, it’s your fault she is dead_ , the dull, depressed voice in your mind keeps on repeating _ad nauseam_.  It’s the very least you can do.  Perhaps this is a fundamental change in your nature, perhaps not.  But if this is what is meant by living a life, day after day, with the constant unrelenting agony?  The human race can _keep_ it.

_You can do everything that’s necessary_ , you think to yourself.  You can look after this yourself, without help from anybody else (except Jackie, of course).  You keep on telling yourself this, and are pitifully grateful to Jackie for roping you in to help with the funeral.  You’d have done it anyway, domesticity be damned, but you’re content to help because it gives you something vaguely positive on which to focus your attention.

Something that isn’t the constant scream that’s been echoing through your head since she’d breathed her last breath as you held her in your arms.  That happened only days ago, but it seems now to feel as if it were centuries.

And every day of this has seen the wild and the pain take you over; the more time passes the more difficult it is for you to carry on when all you see ahead is bleakness.  You had been so _sure_ you were prepared for this.  You’ve seen companions die before, and although all of them hurt none has cut you so deeply.  You can barely function at the moment and you’re terrified it can only get worse; Rose had managed to pull you from your introverted, insular way of thinking and behaviour, and already those traits (ones even you know to be highly unappealing) have started to reappear.  The darkness that has never really left you threatens to swallow you whole.

And you are inclined to let it.

  



End file.
